Maher and Charles take in religion in Religulous’

Friday

Sep 26, 2008 at 12:01 AMSep 26, 2008 at 7:10 PM

The pairing of comedian-hip interviewer Bill Maher (“Real Time with Bill Maher”) and guerilla director Larry Charles (“Borat”) is nothing less than a match made in heaven. Or at least it would be if either guy believed in heaven.

Ed Symkus

The pairing of comedian-hip interviewer Bill Maher (“Real Time with Bill Maher”) and guerilla director Larry Charles (“Borat”) is nothing less than a match made in heaven. Or at least it would be if either guy believed in heaven.
Their documentary “Religulous” (it’s pronounced with a soft “g”) features Maher in front of the camera and Charles behind it as they travel through America and to various hot holy spots around the world, doing their best to debunk a variety of organized religions by talking to different representatives of Catholicism, Judaism, Islam and the like. It’s mostly played for comedy, but Maher is in top form as far as provocatively turning subjects serious for a moment or two before going for the laugh.
Even in talking about the film, Maher sometimes just can’t help getting in a well-placed zinger. Before Maher met his first subject (or are they targets?) to grill, Charles insisted that this was to be the type of documentary that’s not seen on television.
“So this is not a PBS documentary or a CNN documentary,” Maher says. “This is a moviehouse movie with lots of music and clips and big laughs. It’s an experience you want to share with lots of people — much like church!”
Charles intuitively knew that in order to get their message across, some of the questioning would have to be harsh, and he wasn’t afraid of using the tactics he did last time around with Sacha Baron Cohen playing a faux journalist. And he knew that in order to help the vibe of the movie, it was important to shoot in the holiest of sites, such as Jerusalem and Rome.
“We used a ‘Borat’-like approach,” he says. “We tried to slip in and start filming before people knew anything. We had permission [to shoot], but then we’d bring in Bill and insert him into the situation. We’re shooting, there’s no ‘action,’ there’s no ‘cut,’ the scene is just happening all the time. But we were actually asked to leave every place we went to.”
Maher, who seems truly interested in finding out how otherwise rational people can believe in what he calls “fairy tales,” is neither afraid of asking harsh questions, nor convinced that his questioning is accomplishing anything.
“We’re throwing rocks at a giant wall,” he admits. “It’s not going to come down; we will not see religion go the way of button-down shoes in our lifetime. But we are moving away from religion. People have said that if organized religion did go away, civilization would collapse. But Western Europe has mostly chucked it out the window, and it doesn’t look like their civilization has collapsed.”
Maher, who has a Jewish mother but grew up in a Catholic home and now sits somewhere in the field of agnosticism, regularly questions the devotion of the followers he interviews, doing so by bringing up easy-to-ridicule subjects, including televangelism, Christian amusement parks and the way religious Jews find loopholes to make the Sabbath easier to deal with.
And he doesn’t mind talking about himself.
“I was raised Catholic,” he says with a straight face. “I was not abused, and I’m a little insulted because I was a cute kid, and I don’t know why they didn’t find me attractive.”
He manages to stay serious and funny at the same time.
“I always say I’m a rationalist,” he offers. “We don’t like the term atheist. It’s got a pejorative meaning at the moment. We’re saying, ‘I don’t know what is out there.’ My guess is that it’s not a personal god with human characteristics that sounds like it was made up by primitive men when they didn’t know where the sun goes at night or what made women pregnant … like Sarah Palin now. It could be anything. But I don’t know, and I’ll never know while I’m alive.”
Asked why they picked only certain religions to ridicule and question but left out others such as Buddhism and Hinduism, Charles says, “We wanted to cover all of that, but it was money and time and keeping the film to 90 minutes.”
Maher adds, “The American audience is not very familiar with the Eastern religions. We would have had to spend a whole movie educating people about them first. They seem like really peaceful people, but that all about?”
Both men, each of them shamelessly political and clearly opposed to the very publicly religious George W. Bush, are hoping that their film is coming along at just the right time
“I think the role it could play in the election could work both ways,” Charles says a little nervously. Then he perks up and adds, “But if we can create a little more debate before the election, it might actually help defeat McCain and Palin.”
Maher is more outspoken on that subject.
“The country has just gone through eight years with a Jesus freak president, and I think they believe that the country was driven into a ditch,” he says. “We need to put those two dots together, to connect them. But Americans are not great at connecting dots. Maybe this movie can help them do that.”
Neither of them is concerned about their safety after the film’s release. But Charles has given it some thought.
“If we got murdered,” he says, “it would make a good DVD extra.”
“Religulous” opens Oct. 3.
Ed Symkus can be reached at esymkus@cnc.com.

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